


transition

by mitzvahmelting



Series: hoe kelly [4]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Spring Training 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-28 01:58:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17173661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitzvahmelting/pseuds/mitzvahmelting
Summary: New team, same old Joe Kelly.Clayton tries to unravel the enigma of his new teammate.





	transition

**Author's Note:**

> thank you mlbnet discord

It's past one in the morning, when Joe asks, muffled against the pillow, “Is there some holy secret of the universe that you can only divine by staring at another man's ass cheeks?”

Clayton makes a face, and sits up in bed. Reluctantly, he abandons his gentle grip on Joe's thigh in favor of snatching a pillow and holding it against his own stomach. “Sorry,” he mutters.

Joe shrugs, lazily, as best he can while laying on his front. “It's nothing to apologize for,” he says. “Just, it held your attention for so long that I started wondering if there was something I was missing.”

Clayton sighs. His eyes glaze over the smooth curve of Joe's ass one last time (so oddly pretty, in stark contrast with the world of baseball around them. To think, something so pretty could be hidden beneath a teammate's dust-covered pants and no one would ever know!) and then he shifts to lay down parallel to Joe. He settles his shoulders back against the pillows and he stares up at the popcorn ceiling of his temporary Arizona lodgings. “It's nothing,” he mumbles, eventually. The waist-height tower fan by the dresser oscillates his way, a cool breeze rolling over the bare skin of his thighs, his sticky-wet cock, his stomach and up his chest. It's been a long night. “I was just thinking.”

“Don't strain yourself,” says Joe. Then he rolls over a little bit, turns his head to peer over at Clayton. “Sorry, that's - that's something my dad would say. I don't mean that in a mean way; it's just a reflex.”

Clayton brushes him off. “It's fine.”

In the lamplight, when Joe twists his body up to look at Clayton, Clayton can catch a glimpse of some of the sticky wetness between Joe's ass cheeks, and a wave of heat rolls through Clayton's body once more. He shuts his eyes, and returns his gaze to the ceiling. Joe lays back down on the pillow of his arms, and asks, “So, what's on your mind? … if it's a religious crisis about the gay thing, can we postpone it? I'm still enjoying the afterglow.”

Clayton chuckles. “I feel secure that my God won't mind this. Pleasure is a net positive in the world, and we haven't hurt anyone by seeking it…. uh. Well, that's what I was thinking about.”  He folds his arms behind his head, stretching out his torso with a sigh. “I know this was your idea, Joe, but I didn't really ask why you wanted it.”

“A hungry little pussy isn't reason enough?”

Clayton chokes on his own spit, sitting up and coughing into his fist. “Ah… no,” he gets out hoarsely, “that's - no. Try again.”

Joe snickers into the mattress. “I, um… I don't know why. You seem like a good guy. I thought it'd be a fun way to get to know each other.”

“We could have just gone out for drinks or something,” Clayton points out.

“Are you complaining?”

The obvious response is to overcorrect, say _no, no, not complaining,_ under the guise that Clayton loves having a hot hole to fuck so much that he doesn't want to risk losing access. But that answer turns to ash in Clayton's mouth before he can say it. It doesn't feel true. That's not the kind of man Clayton is, and he won't pretend to be. “I'm not complaining,” he says, diplomatically. “I am concerned.”

Joe groans, in annoyance, like this is something familiar to him.

“You've known me for less than twenty-four hours,” Clayton points out.

“We've talked on the phone.”

“Joe, you know you've got this big contract. You're not going anywhere. You don't need to prove yourself here-”

“Don't patronize me,” Joe interrupts. “I know all of that. I'm allowed to - if you'd rather I didn't have sex with _you_ , that's - whatever. But don't pretend you have any control over my decisions.”

“A couple weeks ago,” Clayton says, soberly, “I got a call from David Price.”

Joe pulls himself up into a sitting position.  The lamplight… it turns his skin golden. Again, the word “pretty” comes to mind, and again, Clayton feels this double-vision, where he knows this man is a ballplayer with all the ugly, dirty parts of that world, but he's also something beautiful underneath those clothes, and it makes Clayton wonder how he could ever see Joe as just a man, just a teammate, ever again. Maybe that was the point of all of this.

Joe looks down at Clayton. His naked shoulders are slouched over, his gaze is suspicious. “Why did Price call you?”

“About you. About what I should expect to see from you.”

“Fuck him,” Joe growls. He pulls his knees to his chest. “That's not his business, going behind my back like that.”

Clayton sits up. He puts a pillow behind his back, and he leans against the headboard, lifting his knees at an angle. “He wanted to make sure you'd be safe,” Clayton explains, gently. “He knows you're in an extremely vulnerable position-”

“I can look out for myself.”

“-sleeping around with teammates. It's a recipe for disaster. Blackmail. Abuse. So many ways it could go wrong.”

“You think I don't know that?” Joe bares his teeth. “Does _he_ think I don't know that? I'm not stupid. I know the risks.”

“So why do you do it?”

“I should go-”

“Joe!” Clayton gets a hand on Joe's shoulder, and Joe goes still. Like movement captured in the flash of a photograph, he freezes, and the hairs rise on the back of Clayton's neck. The contact between his palm and Joe's bare shoulder feels liquid-hot. Softly, Clayton tempers his tone, saying, “Joe, please, you don't have to leave. Please just tell me. Help me understand.”

Then he lets go of Joe's shoulder. He doesn't want to hold him in place, doesn't want to come across like a threat. It's all delicate, it's so delicate, and Price's words come to mind like an omen in the crackle of the phone connection, _Just don't hurt him. Please, don't hurt him._

 _I would never,_ Clayton had said, and he's trying so hard to live up to that.

“Please,” he says again, softly.

A beat passes. Clayton can't see Joe's face from this angle, only hunched shoulders, swathes of golden skin dotted with little freckles.

Joe sighs. He turns around, and crawls across the bed towards Clayton. He curls up in the cavity of Clayton's arm, skin to skin, Joe's face pressed against Clayton's chest.

Clayton lets out a long breath. Rests his arm around Joe's body.

“It helps me feel close to people,” Joe mumbles, with his eyes shut, with the skin of his cheek sticking to Clayton's abdomen. “I just want to feel close to people, okay? That's… that's all.”

After a moment, Joe brings his legs up to Clayton too. He traps Clayton's thigh between his own, and the sticky-wet skin of Joe's cock rubs just a little against Clayton's thigh. Joe breathes, “Please don't make me stop,” and Clayton's pretty sure he's talking about his sexual habits broadly, and not just the immediate rutting against Clayton's body.

“Mm,” Clayton hums. He ducks down to press his mouth against the crown of Joe's head, and he runs his thumb down Joe's bicep gently. Then he promises, “I won't make you stop. I won't.”

**Author's Note:**

> might write more about this in the future.  
> please comment if you liked it!


End file.
